Aprilia dominates in the second practice of Catalan Grand Prix

Aleix Espargaro led Aprilia teammate Maverick Vinales in the second free practice of the Catalan Grand Prix.

Espargaro first demonstrated his abilities by setting the quickest time of the weekend – a 1:40.067s – early on, an effort that he maintained until Vinales clocked a 1:39.705s to take leadership of the times.

Espargaro set the pace with a 1m40.207s lap of the Barcelona circuit 20 minutes into the 45-minute session, using medium front and rear tyres. That was the fastest lap of the weekend at the time, and it was more than half a second faster than Marco Bezzechi’s previous FP2 record.

With barely seconds left in the session, Espargaro moved his RS-GP back to the peak of the timing pylon, as the remainder of the field attempted a fast lap after spending the majority of the test completing race laps off the back of FP1.

There was no one else who could manage to beat Espargaro’s benchmark time, carrying the Friday’s honours, with Vinales holding on to second place ahead of Enea Bastianini, the first non-Aprilia, who was 0.488s behind Espargaro.

On a factory Ducati, Francesco Bagnaia finished fourth fastest ahead of Jorge Martin’s Pramac machine, with Brad Binder flying the KTM flag to round out the top six.

On the sister factory Desmosedici, Jack Miller finished seventh ahead of FP1 leader Alex Rins on his Suzuki, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco’s second Pramac bike rounding out the top 10.

Franco Morbidelli didn’t improve on his FP1 time, but he still finished 11th ahead of Pol Espargaro, while VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini were relegated to 14th and 16th, respectively, despite the former leading the race early on.

Joan Mir’s previous problems on the other Suzuki appear to be persistent, with the 2020 MotoGP world champion barely ahead of LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez and KTM’s Miguel Oliveira in 17th place.

Bradl had been pursuing Aleix Espargaro’s pacesetting Aprilia when he crashed his Honda. He made it through the session and finished 23rd, ahead of Tech3 KTM teammates Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner.

CATALAN MOTOGP FREE PRACTICE 2 RESULTS